Getting Started with R

author: Tim Dennis, Data Science Center date: 2020-08-05 autosize: true

Today’s Learning Objectives

What are R and RStudio?

Analogy of difference between R and RStudio. At its simplest, R is like a car’s engine while RStudio is like a car’s dashboard

R & RStudio

Using R via RStudio

Much as we don’t drive a car by interacting directly with the engine but rather by interacting with elements on the car’s dashboard, we won’t be using R directly but rather we will use RStudio’s interface.

How do I code in R?

Programming concepts and terminology

Learning to Code

The best way to master these topics is, in our opinions, through deliberate practice with R and lots of repetition.

Tips on learning to code

R Packages

R packages extend the functionality of R by providing additional functions, data, and documentation. They are written by a worldwide community of R users and can be downloaded for free from the internet. They are essential features of R - we will be using packages in this class.

A good analogy for R packages is they are like apps you can download onto a mobile phone:

Analogy of R versus R packages.

R Packages

plot of chunk r-packages-install

How the class works

Let’s start

Follow this link to the shared RStudio Project. It is also in your course website.